The List
by Don Socrates
Summary: Roland needs to reunite the old Vault Hunters and recruit the new ones. What happens when he meets Cain and Abel? Two relic hunters turned Vault Hunters new to Pandora? Read and find out.
1. New Haven

**Chapter 1**

**[A/N: This is my second Borderlands FF and if you've read my first, then you should know that this is pre-Ten (OC) so he won't be appearing in this, and if he does, it won't be until much later on.]**

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The office was a small shack out in the desert that held one man with a mission. All of his friends had been scattered around Pandora because of the increasing Hyperion attacks. Roland sat down at his desk with a bottle of Rakk ale. He'd had enough. He had to take a stand against the Hyperion scourge oppressing the people of Pandora. "I can't do this alone." He said out loud, suddenly aware that he needed to gather the old team, plus new Vault Hunters. They would be able to do this. To form a resistance against Handsome Jack and his fascist regime. A light began emitting form the dingy little computer that he had set up. It was a new notification from his remote hacking device he'd installed on one of the fast travel stations back in New Haven.

"Well, that certainly changes things." He said, surprised with the incredible luck that he'd been placed with. On the screen was a video feed of two new Vault Hunters walking through the burnt down town of New Haven. They had missed out on the Vault but there was more adventure that Roland could give them. He began typing away at the computer, keeping an ever watchful eye on the Vault Hunters from video feeds he'd received from his remote hacker.

Over in New Haven, the two brothers; Cain and Abel, were rummaging through some wreckage, trying to find some extra provisions or munitions. They hadn't had much problems with the planet so far, only the wildlife as far as the outskirts of New Haven. "What happened here?" Abel asked his brother. The boys were very similar to each other, roughly the same height, both well over the six foot mark and both of them well built.

"By the looks of things, this was a well organised attack. Possibly a battalion of mercs. But even then they'd have to be the same level as the Death's Messengers…" Cain paused for a moment before coming to the conclusion that this wasn't the work of the DM's. That would make being a Vault Hunter very difficult for them.

"I take it that this is NOT the work of the DM's?" Abel responded, looking around, suddenly uneasy about the thought that there could be ANY Death's Messengers around. He'd met one once in passing and the guy scared the crap out of him. To be fair to Abel, this man was one of the elite five, the DM's top fighters, most of which had spooky powers and other supernatural stuff that Abel wasn't sure about. There were names for this man though; some called him the Harbinger of Hell.

"No, it's not thorough enough to be them. They would send in one person if it was retrieval, and they would just level the whole area if it was location targeting." Cain scanned the town to see if there would be any survivors but it seemed like what was once a thriving town of Pandora was now just a barren ghost town of dead building. "Go and see if you can do anything about that generator. If we can restore power then maybe some of the vendors will come online again." Cain said, but quickly hushed his tone and assumed a combat ready position when they both heard a metal clang in the distance.

"Could be more Spiderants." Abel added, before going back to focusing on getting to the generators around town. "Alright, I'll check it out, minimal radio contact. Stay frosty." Cain clung to the wall as he scoured around the building on the ground to get to where he heard the noise originate from. Abel had scaled one of the buildings and was now Cain's eyes in the sky, when he wasn't hushing his curses from the generators. It seemed that they would all be activated simultaneously when the last of them were restored.

Roland observed form behind his desk patiently, maybe these two were exactly the people he needed for his mission to take down Hyperion and put an end to their tyranny.

"You ever get the feeling you're being watched?" Roland heard Abel ask over the radio.

"Yeah?"

"I got that right now."

Roland smiled, they had no idea. He knew what had to be done; it was time to bring them in. He started typing away yet again before he managed to hack himself into one of the local speaker systems. He had to wait for Abel to restore all of the generators before he could access the speakers though. The cameras on the other hand had remote controlled solar panels.

Abel jumped quietly over the gap between two building, staying low, making sure that he wasn't seen by any potential threats. He silently watched Cain in the barren streets below him, moving with grace, clearing each building one by one. He was near the end of the street by now and still no sign of whatever made the noise. Abel had reached the last generator and was just in the process of re-wiring the circuits to resonate the power needed to start the actual generator.

"How's it coming?" Cain asked, finally seeming in a lighter mood upon the discovery of an old bar that was badly damaged but may still have held a few kegs of beer. 'Moxxi's' or that's what he thought it had once said.

"Wait a sec, and… There, got it." Abel's words marked the point where power was suddenly restored in the town. It wasn't much, mainly the use of the vendors here and there, but also some electronically locked doors they would finally be able to get through and explore a little bit more. It was Abel that would get through them, he was the tech genius. They both regrouped in the town centre. Cain held out a lukewarm beer, much to the disgust of his brother.

"What debauchery is this?" He said, feigning offence, but accepting the drink none the less. They both sat down on large bits of debris drinking their beers before they heard the sound of an electronic signal interference before someone's voice was heard from the sky.

"Vault Hunters." His voice was projected loudly over the speaker, it had more power than he thought. "Yeah?" Abel answered simply, obviously not caring who or what was addressing them, despite the unknown person's intent.

"I've got a job for you. Come and meet me in the old research lab to the North. I think you'll find my offer better than scrounging around ghost towns." Roland kept it short, before turning off the computer and heading to doctor Tannis' research lab himself. He hadn't been there in quite some time, but he knew that when he got there, she would have easily accept him and let him conduct his business. After all, it WAS his mission to reclaim Pandora. The boys decided that they might as well go and look for it to meet this mystery contact as they had nothing better to do with their time as of this moment. Maybe whoever this person was, they might know something of the Vault.

**[A/N: Thanks for reading! If you like it, leave a review! There's a lot more to come.]**


	2. Immaturity

**Chapter 2**

**[A/N: Thanks for the messages on the first chapter guys, it has given me a LOT of ways to progress this. You can just leave a review in the future though ;) Enjoy]**

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"What do you think we're going to find wherever it is we're going?" Abel asked his brother. Cain was the elder of the two brother and by far the more mature one. They were both extremely proficient in combat however.

"We're most likely going to find either an ambush, or whoever that man talking over the speaker systems was." Cain responded as he scaled another large boulder that was obstructing their path. His younger brother did the same with relative ease. Both of them being twins; they were roughly the same height and build.

"And if it's an ambush?" Abel asked, trying to keep the embers of conversation alight. Cain smiled sadistically as he drew his custom black Law. It chambered eight bullets, housing a speed loader and a double hammer. Chances were that if you saw this gun pointed at you, then it would be the last thing you saw at all.

"Then we kill everything." He said before jumping down from the ledge above and landing in a soft area of sand. It looked like the way to the lab was partially obstructed. The way they would normally have taken was through a ledge that stood at about three meters tall. That wasn't the problem; the problem is question was the many Rakk that had taken residence on an overhanging archway.

"We're probably going to have to kill them on the way back anyway, why not save ourselves some time?" Abel asked as he paused in a combat offensive position. He was in no way deferring himself to the leadership of his brother, but he did have respect for him, and because of that, if his brother specifically told him not to do something, he wouldn't do it. That single rule had served him well in the past. His older sibling's wisdom was always to a positive effect when the decision could harm his only remaining family member.

"I guess so. Heavy weapons check?" Cain slowly holstered his Black Law. If they had to fight this many Rakk, he would rather that they started the fight with some sort of explosion, taking out as many of them as possible.

"Yeah, BUT. We're fresh out of ammo for the grenade launcher. The vendors in that trashed town didn't have any in stock. We DO however, have a decent supply of plastic explosives. I can sneak up there and blow that hanging ridge down. Taking all of those flying bastards with it." Abel offered, pulling a large chunk of grey plastic out of his digistruct inventory. One of the many perks of being a Vault Hunter was that each and every one of them had a personalised storage space from the digistruct companies which they could store whatever they wanted digitally, to be called upon whenever they needed.

"OK do it. I'll keep an eye out from here." Cain sat down in a patch of sand that was hidden from the offensive glare of the sun. It was also mostly out of view from any other enemies. 'I wonder if it would be easier to just chuck it and shoot it?' Cain thought to himself, but didn't dwell on it. If things went pear shaped then that was most likely what Abel would end up doing. Cain quickly snickered to himself before opening up the ECHO net and connecting to his brother's personal unit.

"If you can tickle a Rakk before setting the charges off, I'll give you a thousand bucks." He laughed at his moment of immaturity. He heard radio silence but he could still see his brother finally clamber up the impasse.

"You're on." He said in his challenge accepted voice. He sneaked his way over to the first arch base and set down a chunk of the plastic explosives, linking two more lumps of it with a short wire that would act as a treble fuse. He finally put a small ignition fuse in the centre lump before thinking about how to achieve his second objective. He decided to go for the biggest Rakk.

He gingerly reached his hand out and before he made contact he had to stifle a small laugh, which to his absolute terror, woke the Rakk up. He quickly lit the fuse without causing too much motion. The Rakk bended it's body so that it could see Abel and roared at the top of however many lungs it had.

"Shut up!" Abel screamed back at it before punching it in the face and diving off the small drop. He landed with a harsh thud that looked like it hurt before crawling back up to the wall in order to shield himself from the blast.

"Well, that's a new story to tell. 'Hi my name is Abel and I punched a Rakk in the face before blowing it up. All within the space of two seconds.' You crazy bastard, here's your money." Cain laughed as they met each other half way. The arch now completely in rubble and all of the obstructing Rakk had been killed off in the blast.

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"So who have you invited into my humble research lab slash home, Roland?" Patricia Tannis asked her long-time friend. Roland was like a son to her. Roland stood by the window watching something of great interest.

"Him." He said calmly, pointing out of the window to where Abel was quietly placing down some explosive charges. They watched him perform his task until he suddenly did something that neither of them expected. He touched the biggest Rakk there; it screeched at him and he screamed back at it.

"Shut up!" He shouted off in the distance before he punched it in the throat and dived off of the platform, no more than a second later his explosives went off and killed all of the Rakk, destroying the arch they always perched on in the process.

"Him? I thought you said there was two of them?" Tannis asked, peeking out of the doorway to see if there would be a secondary man to emerge. Both Cain and Abel climbed up and past the now destroyed obstruction and slowly made their way over to where Roland and Tannis were watching feverishly from the window.

"Hmm." Tannis said, deep in thought.

"What?" Roland responded, half absent from what she was saying. He was trying to analyse the way they calculated the easiest form of approach. They must have known about the way around that.

"They're pretty hot." Tannis said at last. Roland let out an unexpected laugh before going and sitting down at the only desk in the building. He wanted to know everything there was about these Vault Hunters.


End file.
